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Inside AJC

A new Google app is making waves on social media. The Google Arts & Culture app can match a selfie to a portrait. The app uses image-recognition techniques to find your selfie's portrait double. According to Recode, Google says this feature is experimental.

Who was Sergei Eisenstein? Google honors Soviet film pioneer, ‘father of montage’

Here are five things to know about the Soviet legend:

(Google) doodle for Sergei Eisenstein’s 120th birthday
(Google)

He’s known as the “father of montage.”

Eisenstein, who was born in Russia in 1898, was the mastermind behind montage, “a film technique of editing a fast-paced sequence of short shots to transcend time or suggest thematic juxtapositions,” Google wrote.

Essentially, a montage compresses time and gives the audience a lot of information in a short period of time. This type of technique often invokes emotion. In fact, according to CNET, Eisenstein believed the montage was “the nerve of the cinema,” and could be used to manipulate the audience’s emotions.

Eisenstein received the awards for his film “Alexander Nevsky” (1938), a movie with anti-Nazi Germany themes.

But when dictator Joseph Stalin entered into a pact with Adolf Hitler of Germany in 1939, Eisenstein’s “Nevsky” was quickly pulled. It wasn’t until 1941, after war broke out with Germany, that the film was re-released to international acclaim.

In Chaplin’s memoirs, he wrote about playing tennis with Eisenstein, going on boat rides and even described Eisenstein’s film “Battleship Potemkin” as “the best film in the world,” according to his memoir.

According to Ronald Bergan’s book, “Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict,” Eisenstein wrote, “Reality is like the serious white clown. It seems earnest and logical. Circumspect and prudent. But in the final analysis it is reality that looks the fool, the object of derision. Its partner, Chaplin, guileless and childlike, comes out on top. He laughs carelessly without even noticing that his laugh slays reality.”